Development of a portable hypoxia chamber for ultra-high dose rate laser-driven proton radiobiology applications.

Background: There is currently significant interest in assessing the role of oxygen in the radiobiological effects at ultra-high dose rates. Oxygen modulation is postulated to play a role in the enhanced sparing effect observed in FLASH radiotherapy, where particles are delivered at 40-1000 Gy/s. Furthermore, the development of laser-driven accelerators now enables radiobiology experiments in extreme regimes where dose rates can exceed 10 Gy/s, and predicted oxygen depletion effects on cellular response can be tested.